This blog was created by the Purdue Beef Team as an educational forum for beef producers and Extension educators. It includes timely news, issues, and management tips that have the potential to affect the beef business and decision-making process. Opinions expressed in the news clips do not necessarily represent those of Purdue University or the beef industry.

While last month’s record high temperatures may have reduced the demand for supplemental feed, and allowed some perennials to create some regrowth, it may also end up reducing this spring and summer’s total forage production if not managed carefully. This week, Bob Hendershot offers his thoughts on pasture management issues for February.

Genesis Bioventures, Inc. announced that the Company has signed exclusive worldwide sales, marketing and distribution agreements with Prion Developmental Laboratories Inc. (PDL) to commercialize the recently patented Rapid Prion-Detection Assay tests developed by PDL.

The Rapid Prion-Detection Assay is designed to test for prion diseases, such as mad cow disease, directly at the point-of-kill rather than in a laboratory. The Assay is an easy-to-use rapid test strip that can be administered by trained individuals at slaughterhouses with visual results produced in less than 30 minutes.

“This exclusive sales, marketing and distribution agreement immediately satisfies the short term business objectives of both of our companies and concurrently allows us to focus our resources on continued science, technology and product development opportunities. Through this partnering agreement we will be able to advance the sales, marketing and distribution of our products faster and at lower cost to PDL. We expect the net benefit of this agreement will result in faster time to profitability for the company,” said Robert B. Petersen, CEO of PDL.

Dr. Richard Rubenstein, PDL’s Chief Scientific Officer, commenting on the agreement with GBI stated, “This agreement offers the opportunity to more rapidly proceed to PDL product sales and distribution and, at the same time, introducing its technology to the marketplace. Furthermore, PDL will now be able to concentrate its efforts on new product and technology developments.”

“We are very pleased to announce this agreement with PDL,” commented Greg McCartney, Chairman of GBI. “This agreement is the first of many corporate developments we are looking to accomplish this year. The global interest in Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE, Mad Cow Disease) is at an all time high. PDL has an outstanding solution to this global problem that, working together, we can bring to market faster.”

“As an investor in PDL, we want to help the company management and scientists to be able to focus their efforts in developing world-class, market leading diagnostic products based on their patented technology for human and animal health. Dr. Petersen and Dr. Rubenstein are highly respected scientists in the field. They have demonstrated outstanding capabilities to transform complex science and technology into easy to use commercial products,” he continued.

“This agreement represents a strong step toward increasing the commercial opportunities available to both companies,” stated Douglas C. Lane of Experigen Management, advisor to GBI. “GBI has a long term vision for PDL, including further investment in the company and continued interest in acquisition and other corporate partnering strategies. The exclusive agreement strengthens GBI’s position in its current investment in PDL, which the company expects will produce higher shareholder value.”

The worldwide agreement is the aggregate of two agreements between GBI and PDL, one for exclusive rights in Canada and one for exclusive rights in the United States, Japan, Europe and the rest of the world. The agreements specify that GBI has the right to appoint and sell Products to any Sublicensee or similar reseller and both agreements are for a five year period with automatic three year renewals.

Greg McCartney added, “These agreements place GBI and PDL in an extremely favorable position. Approximately 145 million cattle are slaughtered annually in the top 16 beef producing countries alone. It is also imperative for countries like Canada who export a majority of their beef and countries like Japan who import a majority of their beef to demonstrate the safety of their products. The cost and time effectiveness of the PDL test could allow for all animals to be tested, which would ensure food safety with very little added cost to the industry and the end consumer.”

The US Patent and Trademark Office recently issued a Notice of Allowance for PDL’s Rapid Prion-Detection Assay. PDL has already received USDA approval for its chronic wasting disease assay and is currently focusing on rapid diagnostic tests for mad cow disease and other animal TSEs.

TOKYO – Japan will not lower its beef safety standards to suit American producers, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said on Tuesday, defending himself from criticism that the government has failed to conduct proper food inspections.

Japan halted US beef imports last month after the discovery of banned backbones in a shipment of American veal.

The fresh halt to imports was a harsh turnaround for US beef exports to Japan. Tokyo banned American beef in December 2003 after the first US case of mad cow disease, and lifted the embargo only last December.

Koizumi told lawmakers Tuesday that Japan would not change its policy of importing American beef only from cows 20 months old or younger, despite evidence that cows up to 30 months old are free of mad cow disease.

“Americans should understand that Japan’s safety standard is strict,” he said. “They should understand that Japan’s stricter standard only allows cows younger than 20 months, even though 30 months is considered safe elsewhere.”

Japan’s Food Safety Commission approved lifting the ban on US beef on two conditions: that imports be limited to meat from cows aged 20 months or less; and that brains, bone marrow, backbones and other parts thought to be at high risk for mad cow disease be removed.

The discovery of backbone in the veal shipment spurred the agriculture minister to acknowledge that government officials had not inspected American beef exporters until after the ban was eased, despite a Cabinet statement that checks would come before imports resumed.

Opposition leader Seiji Maehara of the Democratic Party of Japan accused the government of failing to protect the public’s safety and health by hastily allowing US beef back into the Japanese market.

“Chances are high that a large number of Japanese might have been forced to eat dangerous meat,” Maehara said. “The government’s failure to fulfill its responsibility to protect the public’s health and safety is serious.”

Koizumi said he hoped to “turn the potential disaster to one’s advantage” and achieve a fruitful outcome for the beef problem.

“It is our responsibility to promote their understanding and establish a mutually agreeable framework under which we can resume imports,” he said.

What have cattle got to do with firefighters or oil wells? Quite a bit, as it turns out. Cattle produce meat and milk for our tables, and now the University of Alberta is discovering new ways to use a cattle byproduct that was devalued in the wake of mad cow disease (BSE).

Blood meal, the dried blood left over after carcasses are processed at a rendering plant, is being explored for its properties as a fire-fighting foam and other foaming applications, including advanced oil recovery operations. The brown powder had previously been sold at a low profit as an additive to livestock feed, but the market dissolved after BSE was discovered in an Alberta cow in 2003.

Since then, the U of A departments of Chemical and Materials Engineering and Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science have collaborated to research the possibilities of blood meal. Their efforts are paying off, said Jayne Roper, a fourth-year chemical engineering student at the University of Alberta.

After two months in the lab, Roper and other U of A researchers have successfully converted the solid blood meal into dissolvable form-which must happen before it can be turned into a foaming agent.

It took some experimentation in the lab, Roper said. “At first we tried grinding the blood meal mechanically and getting it to dissolve in water or a low-concentration salt solution. That didn’t work well, but by using a base solution with a high pH, it worked well. We’re heading in the right direction now.” The protein in blood meal can now be purified and isolated from its liquid form, an important step before modifying the protein to improve its foaming properties.

Blood meal products could be ready for mainstream industrial and commercial use within the next few years.

The bovine proteins in blood meal, once engineered, should lend themselves to producing lots of long-lasting foam, which is an important element for firefighting, Roper said. Blood meal is naturally sourced, and it is expected that the derived foaming agent will be biodegradable. Currently, the chemical foams used to smother flames have potential health and environmental implications. “It’s not something you want to have around humans in large quantities,” Roper noted.

As well, foams created from blood meal are likely applicable in the drilling industry, and Roper sees plenty of potential for other uses. “This makes for exciting basic research. Developing protein-based foaming agents like this may also permit discovery of new forms of biodegradable defoamers which help remove foaming from processes used in industries such as pulp and paper processing.”

“This project is exciting because it fosters a collaborative approach between my laboratory and that of two professors in the U of A Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering,” said Dr. David Bressler, a professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food, and Nutritional Science and principal researcher in the project. “The research directs engineering expertise, which traditionally focuses on the petrochemical sector, toward agriculture resources and those applications.”

“Projects like this ensure that Alberta plays a leadership role in tomorrow’s emerging bio-economy,” Bressler said.

The research is supported by the Alberta Agriculture Research Institute and AVAC Ltd.

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Posted onFebruary 7, 2006|Comments Off on Japanese consumers oppose rapid reopening of market to U.S. beef

Japanese consumers oppose rapid reopening of market to U.S. beef

by Pete Hisey on 2/7/2006 for Meatingplace.com

Tipper Tie Inc
Nearly four out of five (79 percent) of Japanese consumers say that the government should go slow in reopening Japan to U.S. beef, and nearly two-thirds (64 percent) say they will not buy U.S. beef if the ban is lifted, according to a poll conducted by Nihon Keizai Shimbun, a daily business newspaper.

Only 6 percent said that the government should end the ban immediately, and only 27 percent said they would buy U.S. beef if it was available. Seven percent said that the ban should not be lifted at all.

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Posted onFebruary 7, 2006|Comments Off on First U.S. beef lands in Taiwan on Thursday

First U.S. beef lands in Taiwan on Thursday

by Pete Hisey on 2/7/2006 for Meatingplace.com

The first shipment of U.S. beef will arrive at Taipei’s Chiang Kai-shek International Airport on Thursday, according to Central News Agency, and may be on Taiwanese plates by lunch on Friday. Department of Health Director Hou Sheng-mao will inspect the shipment on Friday morning.

This will mark the first U.S. beef allowed in Taiwan since June 25 of last year, when a Texas cow tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Taiwan had provisionally reopened its market two months earlier.

Taiwan has set some tough standards for imported beef. The meat must come from animals raised and slaughtered after April 16, 2005, when the border originally reopened; it must have bones, nerves and spinal cord removed; it must come from Taiwan-approved processors; and it must carry USDA safety certificates.

Taiwan was the sixth-largest importer of U.S. beef in 2003, prior to the first discovery of BSE in the United States, purchasing about $325 million worth of beef annually.